


who breaks hearts like gaston

by youaremarvelous



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Drabble, Gen, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 15:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15270180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youaremarvelous/pseuds/youaremarvelous
Summary: when Keith names Gaston as his favorite Disney character, Lance has some questions.So, look. Lance knows Keith isn’t great with women. Annoyingly good looks aside, he possesses the charm of a Quaflor. Which is to say, none at all. Still, it had never occurred to Lance that the guy might be…“He’s straight up sexist, dude,” Lance whisper-yells to Hunk during training.





	who breaks hearts like gaston

It starts innocently enough.

 

Lance is lounged out on the common room couch after dinner, leading the team in what started as bonding exercises but gradually devolved into a collective pining session over nostalgic Earth-based media. “Okay, so Disney movies. Pidge, hit me with a favorite.”

 

Pidge stares at the laptop screen in her lap, typing intermittently. “I don’t know, Wall-E?”

 

“I said Disney, Pidge, could you at least pretend like you’re paying attention?”

 

Pidge glances up, nose wrinkled. “Pixar is owned by Disney, it totally counts.”

 

“Fine.” Lance waves a hand like the benevolent god of feature-length animation, pardoning his foolish subject from an untimely demise. “I guess I’ll allow it. Hunk?”

 

“Ratatouille.”

 

“ _Guys_ —” Lance stretches out the word, exasperated. “They can’t all be Pixar movies. Don’t you have any appreciation for the classics? Keith, buddy, help me out.”

 

Keith is on the couch—booted foot propped on one knee—polishing a 7-inch folding knife. Lance is reasonably sure he didn’t have any weapons on him when he corralled everyone together for involuntary quality time, but by now he’s learned not to question it.

 

“I don’t know. Gaston is pretty cool, I guess.”

 

“See,” Lance’s face lights up with an excited smile. “Beauty and the Beast, a true Renaissance masterpie—wait.” He side-eyes Keith who has set the folding knife aside and moved on to an oil slick, knuckleduster dagger. How he’s managing to smuggle anything in his painted-on civvies is a mystery Lance doesn’t feel brave enough to delve into. “Gaston? You mean misogynist, egotistical, ‘it’s not right for a woman to read’  _Gaston_?”

 

Keith shrugs.

 

“O…kay. Let’s try that one again. What’s your second favorite?”

 

Keith squares up, stiffening in the way he always does when he’s losing patience with Lance’s antics. “I don’t know. Which one has Li Shang in it?”

 

Lance’s mouth hangs open. “You mean Mulan, the movie about the girl who disguises herself as a man to fight for the Chinese military and save her ailing father from conscription,  _Mulan_?”

 

“Uh, yeah. That one.”

 

So, look. Lance knows Keith isn’t great with women. Annoyingly good looks aside, he possesses the charm of a Quaflor. Which is to say, none at all. Still, it had never occurred to Lance that the guy might be…

 

“He’s straight up sexist, dude,” Lance whisper-yells to Hunk during training.

 

“Keith?” Hunk grunts through a push-up. “You sure about that?”

 

“Trust me, I didn’t want to believe it, either.”

 

“I don’t know…he and Pidge get along fine.”

 

“Dude, I’m telling you. Who likes Gaston? He’s, like,  _the_  archetype of a chauvinist male pig.”

 

Hunk opens his mouth to reply, but he’s cut off by Shiro calling the team over to split into sparring pairs.

 

Lance elbows Hunk in the ribs. “Five GACs he asks to team up with Shiro.”

 

“He always wants to team up with Shiro.”

 

“My point exactly!”

 

As predicted, Keith looks to Shiro when it’s time to pair off. Lance steps between them, unable to resist interjecting in what he’s sure is a blatant dismissal of the female member of the team. “Hey, why don’t we switch it up for today? I haven’t had a chance to spar with Shiro in at least a phoeb.”

 

Keith has his arms folded over his chest—obviously annoyed—but Shiro pats his shoulder, dispels the fire hot irritation rolling off him in waves in the way only Shiro can. “Lance is right, why don’t you team up with Pidge this time.”  

 

It’s not a question, which in Lance’s mind, is the only reason Keith begrudgingly agrees. Keith’s bad attitude eats at Lance on the best of days, but this is something else entirely. It’s not an argument over something petty like who has the better flying skills or who has a more slammin’ bod (Lance, obviously, on both counts). This is discrimination based on innate, uncontrollable factors.

 

Lance finally works up the nerve to confront him after dinner. He can abide the unsettling knife conjuring and 80’s bad boy haircut, but he grew up with a Mom who emphasized mutual respect for all genders and he can’t just sit back and do nothing while a sexist sits as the right-hand man on a weapon that’s meant to defend the universe. The entirety of it. Not just the part that identifies as male.  

 

“Keith, hey, can we talk?” Lance catches Keith in the hallway after everyone parts way for evening free time.

 

Keith stiffens immediately, his defenses visibly raising in the uncertain tilt of his mouth, the widening of his stance. “Uh, sure, I guess. What’s up?”

 

“I was just wondering—” Lance sucks in a breath. He wishes he’d had the foresight to workshop an explanation that stands the least chance of detonating Keith’s explosive temper. “Do you….uh. What are your…” He opens and closes his mouth, searching for the words. “Look, what are your thoughts on women?”

 

Keith’s eyebrows furrow, his forehead creases in confusion. “They’re…fine, I guess?”

 

“You guess?”

 

“Well, I haven’t met all of them, but generally…” Keith shrugs, looking lost.

 

“Okay, good.” Lance nods slowly. He repeats the words again to himself, quieter this time. “That’s good.”

 

Keith folds his arms over his chest, a surefire sign of an incoming anger explosion if Lance has ever seen one. He swears he can smell the smoke billowing from Keith’s ears.

 

“What is this about?”

 

“It’s…hm,” Lance rakes his brain for a reasonable response. He wouldn’t normally put so much effort into converting a suspected sexist, but for better or for worse, Keith is part of the team, and—maybe more importantly—they can’t form Voltron without him. “I’m worried about you, you know?”

 

“Worried?”

 

“Because I don’t see you hanging out with women too often. You seem to cozy up with the guys no problem, but the ladies…”

 

“Sorry I don’t flirt with everything that moves. My mind is kind of preoccupied with the imminent threat to our planet.”

 

“Hey. Hey hey hey. I do not flirt with everything that moves.”

 

“Are you serious?” Keith’s eyes blow wide. “The Kruzlacks. The Janlops. The Pineldians? They were basically sentient  _trees_.”

 

“Hey! Alderia had a beautiful bark pattern!”

 

Keith scoffs.

 

“Yeah, well at least I’m not a sexist!”

 

Keith drops his arms. His mouth hangs half-open like he’d meant to say something but lost the words during their journey from his brain to his tongue. “Sexist?”  

 

“You didn’t think I’d notice how you barely talk to Allura? You’re only ever aggro the angry space kid with other women. Not to mention… _Gaston_? Dude, c’mon. No one likes Gaston.”

 

“He’s…I haven’t seen that movie since I was a kid. I thought it was cool when he lifted that bench with one arm. It doesn’t mean I don’t believe in equal rights for women.”

 

“Yeah, well, what about the fact that you only ever want to spar with Shiro?”

 

Keith clamps his mouth shut. He looks paler, but it’s probably a trick of the castle-ship’s light—drowning his features in an ambient blue glow. When he speaks again, his voice is raspier, pitched lower than normal. “Shiro’s just—he’s strong.”

 

“So you’re saying Pidge isn’t strong.  _Allura_  isn’t strong?”

 

“What? No, but…” Keith’s eyes flit to Shiro. He’s playing a game of chess with Pidge in the common room next door. His elbows are leaned on his knees, pecs straining the fabric of his t-shirt, framed by two bulging biceps. Keith bites his lower lip, cheeks turning as red as his paladin armor.

 

The truth plunks into Lance’s brain slowly, disjointed tableaus that melt together to paint a landscape of obvious thirst. Keith ducking out of hugs from anyone who isn’t Shiro. Keith insisting on spotting Shiro during warm-ups, the way he always looks overheated after. The singular big, bulky commonality between Gaston and Li Shang and Shiro. “Oh,” Lance blinks and takes a step back. He covers his mouth with his hand, understanding breathing through him. “ _Oh_.”

 

"Don’t tell anyone,” Keith hisses through his teeth. He looks alarmed, more so than Lance has ever seen him—life-threatening Galra fleet battles included. “Lance, I mean it.”

 

Lance holds his hands in front of his chest, shaking his head as though to fling the realization from it. He’s all for team bonding, even in the case of sharing sexual preference, but a line has to be drawn somewhere and intimate fetish disclosures is probably it. “No problem, buddy,” he says, ready to fast-track the forgetting process. “I won’t say a word.”

 

And he doesn’t. Keith eyes him warily before turning away with a quiet sigh, a hand dragged through his hair. He takes his place next to Shiro on the couch, pulls out a knife from god knows where and starts polishing.

 

Lance stumbles after him for a lack of anywhere better to go. He feels exhausted, heavy with a burden he has unwittingly forced himself to bear. Now that he’s aware of Keith’s…situation…he can’t not notice the way Keith lays a hand on Shiro’s thigh when they laugh over some lame night/knight pun, the way Keith absently licks at his bottom lip when Shiro leans forward to move a chess piece—biceps flexing.

 

In this one, minuscule way, Lance can feel himself understanding where Gaston was coming from. He drops his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, thinking, ‘ _I can’t believe he’s in love with a beast_.’ 

**Author's Note:**

> [[tumblr](http://youremarvelous.tumblr.com/post/175797446558/it-starts-innocently-enough-lance-is-lounged-out)]


End file.
